Chapter Fourteen: Morning
The bright light of the early morning sun played upon Kakashi, teasing his eyelid until he finally felt forced to crack it open a little. He shifted slightly and felt a searing pain scream across his chest, over his shoulder and down his back. Opening his eye completely he shifted his head slightly to look down at his chest and noticed two things: The first was the unpleasant realization that his chest had clearly not been healed. Rather, it had been cleaned and tightly bound with bandages by the pink haired medic instead.
The second was much more pleasurable, though slightly worrying for he wasn’t sure why he was able to take so much pleasure from it. Sakura lay slumped against the side of what he realized must be her bed with one bloody hand curled into the blanket resting partially on his waist, the other one folded under her head. He could tell that she was deep asleep by the even breaths she was taking through her slightly parted lips. Almost absently he noted the nearly serene expression gracing her face, if one were to dismiss the smear of what he assumed to be his blood across her forehead.
Hastily, he tore his gaze from the sleeping kunoichi and in doing so his eye came to rest on the bloody mess on her floor. The mass of gory towels, basin filled with dirty red water, and the shallow congealed pools of blood gracing the floor of her room spoke all too clearly of what she had done. Silently he cursed; if he had realized at the time he had been hit with poison he would probably have found the ninja at the gate and let himself be escorted to the hospital rather than bother his well meaning former student with such a serious condition.
Kakashi found his eye drifting back to her once again of its own accord. She had done what he knew from experience could take two or three normal medics a couple grueling hours to do. For a brief moment, he felt a surge of pride for his former student before reminding himself that he had nothing to do with her medical training and couldn’t possibly deserve the sense of pride he was feeling. Absently he reached down with his uninjured hand to brush a couple strands of her hair from her face. Unbidden, his hand grazed the side of her cheek causing the woman to shift a little in her sleep and lean ever so slightly into his touch. Realizing what he was doing, he hastily pulled his hand away from her, quietly scolding himself for the unnecessary physical contact with his former student.
Still, despite the scathing remarks directed at himself, he couldn’t keep his thoughts away for long and while he was contemplating the blissfully snoozing medic, the room started to spin ever so slightly to his left. Trying to rid himself of the disorienting feeling, Kakashi shook his head, finding too late it only worsened the effect. Groaning faintly as a feeling of nausea hit him, he hastily lay his head back down on the pillows and closed his eye trying to will the unpleasant sensations away. Belatedly, he realized it would probably be a while before he was back up and in mission condition with the presumably massive blood loss he had just suffered and whatever lingering marks the poison had left.
As he was doing his best imitation of a corpse to avoid the waves of nausea, the elite shinobi sensed rather than heard the slumbering kunoichi slowly begin to wake. He felt her hand curl into his waist, suddenly pausing in mid-stretch, the hand then tapping hesitantly about, moving onto his abdomen before retreating abruptly with a soft thud as she clearly slumped completely to the floor. If he wasn’t feeling so ill he may have laughed at her sleepy reaction. Instead Kakashi continued his best imitation of sleep in hopes that she might be able to do something about his queasiness once she finally managed to wake up and come to terms with the situation at hand.
Straining his ears, Kakashi was only just able to catch several hissed curses coming from the vicinity of the floor. Again, he was barely able contain his amusement at the medic’s reaction, waiting to see what else she may do, and silently hoping she would fix whatever it was that had decided to send the room spinning like a top – and soon.
~*~*~*~
Sakura woke with a pounding headache that usually signaled one of two things: either she had imbibed too much alcohol the night before, or she had over extended her chakra again.
As the pain behind her eyes eased a little, she gradually became aware of her position slumped against what felt like her bed with her head resting on her right arm and her left curled into the blanket against something firm with just a little bit of give. Groggily, she curled her fingers against the alien object in an attempt to discern what it could be, her mind not quite up to actual thought yet. Cautiously, she patted her hand against the unfamiliar object resting in her bed. All at once her memories returned to her in a rush and Sakura pulled her hand away from her former sensei’s clearly well defined lower abdomen. In her haste to remove the offending appendage, she lost her grip on the side of her bed, causing her to fall backward onto her rump with a muffled thump.
Cursing as quietly as she could, she rubbed her rear and slowly managed to get to her feet. Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs that seemed to have invaded her brain sometime during the night, she moved back to her bed to take stock of the injured shinobi. Cautiously, she extended a hand gently to his forehead, extending small tendrils of chakra to assess the situation.
All too quickly, she hissed in pain and pulled her hand away to rub at her temples, murmuring to herself “Oooo, too soon. Too soon… maybe after breakfast.” She looked down at her bloody hands for the first time. “Another pair of pajamas ruined,” she muttered to herself with a sigh. “Definitely need a shower too.” Her eyes returned to the shinobi, seemingly still asleep in her bed. She had thought she felt a faint twitch when she had placed her fingers on his forehead, but for whatever reason he didn’t want to open his eye and show her he was awake.
Briefly, she had thoughts that he may be waiting for her to leave the room so he could make a stealthy exit. Sakura dismissed them almost as quickly as they had occurred to her: he was clearly in no condition to be out and about yet and he was intelligent enough to realize that. At least she had to hope that he was.
Finally managing to pull her eyes from her impromptu patient, she moved to her dresser to grab some clothes before heading out to her bathroom for a well needed shower.
~*~*~*~
Hearing her exit the room and the shower start, his eye snapped open. Kakashi regarded her ceiling for a few quiet moments listening to the shower, lost in thought. Guiltily, he thought he should go and find another medic to finish the job as she was clearly still feeling the aftereffects of overextending herself the evening before. It had been all he could do to not flinch at her hiss of pain after trying to assess his condition.
Making up his mind, he lifted his head a little only to immediately set it back down on the pillow as the world started to tilt and then spin lazily once again. He sighed, but realized she would probably kill him if he took his exit anyway. All that was left for him to do now was to wait for her to return and hope she could do something about the waves of nausea that had returned without hurting herself.
While he was waiting he tried his best to forget the little scene he had witnessed the previous evening and his all too natural but still slightly disconcerting reaction to it. It only confirmed something he had known but had been unwilling to deal with for a long time and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to continue to ignore it as easily as he had in the past. Or, and he kicked himself for his mutinous mind, if he really wanted to continue ignoring it.
~*~*~*~
Feeling much better for the long, cool shower she had taken, she made her way back to her room. She entered only vaguely expecting him to still be there and was pleasantly surprised to find him still lying exactly where she had left him with his eye open.
“Ah, g’morning,” she greeted him with a genuine smile as she moved to the side of the bed to get a better look at the still seriously injured shinobi.
Kakashi groaned softly and inched his eye in her direction without moving his head. “Might be… if room wasn’t… spinning…” he hissed from between clenched teeth.
Sakura’s eyes widened in surprise, the possibility of lingering side effects had not occurred to her. “Oh! I didn’t realize…” she trailed off, her eyes flitting over him, looking for additional signs of distress. “Must have been one of the side effects of the poison,” she noted absently as she gathered a small amount of chakra before remembering that she couldn’t. After a moment of coaxing, with the motivation of a nauseas Copy Nin laying on her bed, she moderated her energy output until she was able to manipulate at least a small portion of her chakra.
Gently, she laid her fingertips against his sweat dampened forehead and closed her eyes, focusing completely on what she was doing. Unknown to her, his eye found its way to her face, fascinated – not for the first time – with the expression of total concentration and focus as she carefully worked to assess his condition.
Sakura let out a soft, “Ah,” as she found the cause of his nausea and carefully set about removing it. Gingerly her fingers slid across his forehead and paused only slightly before continuing down the side of his cloth covered cheek, then onto and down his neck, pausing again briefly before continuing down his chest to rest lightly over his stomach. His breath caught in his throat at the soft movement of her hand before he was able to forcibly relax as he felt the nausea dissipate in the wake of her fingers.
She sighed as she removed her fingers from his abdomen, feeling her cheeks tint a little as she realized exactly what she had just done in the process of dispelling the nausea. Forcing away the faint feeling of embarrassment, she opened her eyes to focus on her former sensei. The blush returned upon finding his unreadable eye focused on her.
“Um, feeling better Kakashi?”
His eye curved in his all too familiar version of a smile. “Much.”
She laughed, feeling better that he had chosen not to acknowledge her brief moment of unexplained discomfort.
“Good, I’ll go make breakfast. Hopefully after some food I’ll be able to finish the job.” She straightened a little too quickly and found herself suddenly in great need of finding a seat on the edge of the bed, unintentionally jostling the older man. “Or maybe not…”
He chuckled at her actions, wincing slightly at the pain the movement of his chest caused him.
She sighed. “Guess I over extended myself a little more than I thought.”
The medic regarded him contemplatively before narrowing her eyes in clear suspicion. Carefully, she made another attempt to stand and found that as long as she went slowly she was able to maintain her balance.
“I’m going to start breakfast…” she paused and eyed him apprehensively as she reached the door. “You are going to stay put until I can finish healing you, aren’t you?”
His expression suddenly took on an all too familiar not-so-innocent cast and she was forcefully reminded of the expression he reserved for explaining the particularly hellish training methods he had in his arsenal.
“Oh no you don’t!” She growled before realizing that she really had no way to keep the injured, but still ex-ANBU, elite jonin in place long enough for her to recover and finish healing him. If he were completely determined to leave he could and she knew he would.
He grinned at her momentarily crestfallen expression, feeling relatively sure she couldn’t quite make it out under his mask.
“I suppose promising you a homemade breakfast wouldn’t be enough to get you to stay until I can heal you, would it?” Sakura asked halfheartedly, already knowing the answer.
Kakashi’s silence spoke volumes to her.
“You do know it’s for your own good, right?” she tried in a wheedling tone, stopping just short of batting her eyelashes at him.
He chuckled as lightly as he could at her efforts, remaining otherwise silent – he remembered all too clearly her many attempts to create food one way or another while on missions. Clearly, she had failed the cooking parts of her kunoichi classes, leaving the kitchen duties mostly up to Sasuke and himself since their ramen obsessed teammate was useless when placed in a kitchen or in front of a fire and asked to make something other than instant ramen.
She huffed, knowing all too well he would take his leave as soon as the first opportunity presented itself. “So, what do I have to offer you to get you to stay…” she trailed off as she thought about it, not quite aware that she had actually just spoken that last line aloud. Her eyes slid about her room, examining everything except the silent shinobi, in the hopes of finding something that she could use as leverage.
If her eyes had found him, she would have seen a wealth of contrasting emotions crossing his lone generally inexpressive eye.
Lost in thought, her gaze fell to the previously unnoticed knapsack that lay where he had discarded it the night before. She knew for sure that it was his by the somewhat battered, but still vibrant, orange jacketed book peaking out from one of the side pockets.
“Ah!” Sakura exclaimed as an idea hit her.
Curiously, his eye followed hers to his bag and the visible copy of Icha Icha Tactics and his brain threatened to shut down entirely at the dirty implications the presence of the volume alone was able to place in his already corrupt mind. Panic attempted to set in as numerous scenes from the novel played out in his mind – the roles of the main character taken by himself and that of the sultry seductress by his former student. Absently he wondered if she had kept the Icha Icha inspired apparel he had once been granted the pleasure of seeing her wear.
Desperately he tried to remove the inappropriate thoughts from his mind, more than annoyed with himself over the fact that it wasn’t the first time he had had to forcibly remove improper thoughts about Sakura from his mind. There had been plenty of times during their long acquaintance where such unprofessional thoughts had inadvertently invaded his consciousness however he had always been careful and successful at locking them away deep in his subconscious where they could do no harm. Unfortunately, the eyeful he had received before passing out the previous evening, coupled with the tempting tease he had witnessed at the hot spring, clearly contradicted his most cherished objection to the improper thoughts: she was too young for him to be thinking of her in such a way.
He was unceremoniously jolted from his troubling musings by a small brightly colored package dancing around in front of his eye. “Eh?” He refocused on the kunoichi waving the package in front of him. Questioningly, he looked from her to the package and back again.
“Ah, now that I have your attention, I have a little proposition to make.”
Barely, only just barely was he able to keep his mind from falling into the gutter again; he had never been put under pressure quite like this with her before. Hastily, Kakashi pulled his mind back to his former student who had stopped speaking to give him a strange look.
“Er, go on… about the proposition?” Kakashi tried, doing his best to keep his usual calm exterior intact.
She eyed him suspiciously, wondering just what had crossed his mind for his eye to go from shock, to delight, to horror, and back so quickly. After a moment, she concluded she would probably be better off not knowing and she decided to try her bribery attempt again.
“I have here in my hand,” she gestured to the brightly colored package she was holding, “what I had been planning on giving to you for your birthday. It was ridiculously difficult to track down and even harder to obtain … but I figured it would be worth it just to see the expression on your face when I gave it to you.”
His gaze slid back to the small package, not quite sure what it could possibly be. If it had been a little smaller he would have no trouble identifying it as a volume of Icha Icha, though, as far as he knew, he had them all. Questioningly, he returned his gaze to the medic who was waiting patiently for him to return his attention to her so she could continue.
She flushed slightly as she continued, feeling complete and undivided attention focused on her. “I want your word of honor as a shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves that you will not leave my apartment until I say you are healthy enough to do so. In return, I will give this to you now and find something else to give you for your birthday.”
She eyed him, watching as he fought his curiosity. Eventually, with as little grace as he could summon, he reached for the package. She pulled it quickly from his reach. “Promise first, then present.”
He sighed. “I promise on my honor as a shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Leaves that I will not leave this apartment until you deem me fit to do so.” He raised his eyebrow and waited for the package to be given to him.
Stunned she stared at him for a moment before shaking her head. “Uh, um, one more thing...don’t ask.” She flushed an attractive shade of crimson, feeling shocked that he had agreed so readily and slightly unprepared to give him his prize.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Eh, what?” Kakashi asked wondering what she could possibly mean by the cryptic request.
She handed him the package. “Just don’t ask.”
He looked at her questioningly once more before his curiosity won out over her strange request. Seconds later found the colorful wrappings discarded and an expression of complete disbelief on his face.
He was holding a scarlet jacketed book slightly larger than his treasured Icha Icha volumes, graced with the title Icha Icha Eden. Kakashi’s wide eye found its way incredulously to her face, which he noted with some amusement almost matched the cover of the most coveted book in the entire Icha Icha series. Sakura had somehow obtained one of the nearly mythical copies of the first Icha Icha volume Jiraiya had ever managed to have published.
Due to an unfortunate marketing error, the cover art was designed to appeal to children rather than adults, causing an enormous scandal once parents realized what their children were purchasing, ultimately culminating in one of the largest book burnings Konoha had ever seen. Consequently, few copies survived the overzealous parents. At least one of those copies resided in the possession of the author. Later, the book was rewritten, retooled, and re-released in its trademark orange jacket with clear warning as Icha Icha Paradise.
For a couple long moments, words failed him. Finally, he was able to find his mouth and ask one simple question, “How?”
She turned her eyes away from his questioning gaze, managing to turn a red several shades darker. “I don’t think you really want to know.”
Illogical anger seized the normally calm shinobi as possibilities crossed his mind as to just what she could have had done in exchange for the treasured dirty book. His eye hardened, causing her to subconsciously flinch away from the older man. Immediately he softened his gaze, realizing he should be thankful for his present and do as she had asked and not ask, even though he was dying to know just what she had done for the legendary book.
She huffed, realizing what he was most likely thinking. “I can almost guarantee that it is not what you think, you old pervert.”
He had the decency to blush at her admonition. “I’m sorry Sakura, it’s just…” he trailed off, not sure where to go with his apology so as to not offend her any more than he already had.
“It’s okay guess I can’t really blame you for it too much considering just who I was bargaining with for it…” She moved to the door, knowing he would stay put with the treasured dirty book in his hands, but missing the almost pained expression that flashed across the silver haired shinobi’s face. “I’m going to make breakfast. Hopefully some food and a bit more rest will be all I need to finish healing you.”
Sakura left the room only to return to stick her head in a moment later. “Oh, um if I’m any sort of judge of these things… Uh, that is, to be on the safe side…” she paused her face feeling as though it might explode from the extra blood coloring her skin. “Just try not to look too closely at the characters in the next Icha Icha volume, okay?” Quickly she fled to the kitchen, not wanting to hear his response or for him to see the flaming blush gracing her face.
~*~*~*~
A few moments later, he slowly and stiffly made his way into the kitchen to join her, scarlet book in hand. She turned from the stove and squeaked in dismay at seeing the injured shinobi out of bed and moving; all it would take would be one little slip and he could reopen his wounds, seriously putting himself at risk since she still didn’t have enough chakra to heal him.
“Kakashi! What on earth are you doing?! You shouldn’t be up and about!” Quickly, she made her way to his side to help him ease himself into one of her kitchen chairs. Once he was settled, she caught a slight whiff of burning eggs and cursed as she hurried back to the stove to try and salvage breakfast.
He chuckled only to be silenced by another glare from the annoyed kunoichi.
“Well?” she asked wanting an explanation for his migration from the bedroom to the kitchen.
“Got lonely,” he grunted while making a show of opening his new book and immersing himself in the dirty world contained therein.
Sakura stared at him openmouthed for a moment before huffing to herself. Clearly, he would only make up ridiculous answers if she continued to press him on the issue. Instead of frustrating herself with the stoic ninja she surveyed the breakfast she had just ruined. Sighing, she dumped the scorched omelet and started over, feeling grateful that she had recently gone shopping and had plenty of eggs and fresh vegetables.
Once she started cooking again, he lowered his prized book to watch, surprised by her apparent facility in the kitchen. As he remembered, her cooking had definitely left something to be desired in her genin days. Watching her deftly flip an omelet, he began to suspect he, like many sensei before him, may have been duped. Vaguely he remembered hearing it happening to some of the other male jonins assigned to captain genin teams, but for some reason he hadn’t thought to doubt the kunoichi assigned to his team: she had seemed so guileless he hadn’t found it necessary to actually check with her kunoichi skills sensei.
Several minutes later he hastily pulled his book back up in front of his eye before she turned to bring him a plate with an omelet, buttered toast and a sliced apple along with a cup of tea. Kakashi raised an inquisitive eyebrow at his former student.
She smiled. “No worries Kakashi, I’ll just go make another omelet I’m sure that by the time I’m done you’ll have finished. I promise not to look.” Impishly she stuck her tongue out at the older shinobi. “It would be such a let down to finally get to see your face and have it stuffed full of food at the time.”
He sighed audibly as she turned her back to him to prepare another omelet for herself and steeled himself for what appeared to be a successful omelet. Years of experience with her cooking warned him that when there was nothing obviously wrong with it, her food generally tasted worse than he could possibly imagine. After the first few bites, he realized that it hadn’t killed him, he wasn’t in pain, and it actually tasted quite good. Before he knew it he had finished everything on his plate.
Quietly, he groaned. He, too, had fallen for the first trick the kunoichi skills sensei, most likely Suzume, had advised all kunoichi with male jonin leaders to utilize – under exaggerate all skills related to domestic areas, otherwise get stuck doing them for as long as the team is together.
He stared at the empty plate for a moment before replacing his mask to pose a question to his former student. “Sakura,” his voice reverted to the one he used when she was younger and he had caught her doing something particularly childish.
“Er, yes Sen- um, Kakashi?” she stammered. She recognized that tone and realized she had just made a big mistake. She would have been better off serving him the scorched mess that was her first attempt.
“Sakura, when did you learn to cook?” he asked, annoyed more with himself for not discovering her little deception sooner.
He was anything but domestic. If he had known that she could cook he would definitely have taken advantage of the fact. Belatedly he lamented all of the opportunities he had missed to stealthily capitalize on her domestic skills without particularly appearing to do so – all of the many times she had come to his apartment to heal him came immediately to his mind. After only a couple moments of inner annoyance his mind began trying to find surreptitious ways of getting her to cook for him at the very least sometime soon, if not on something of a regular basis.
She stiffened. He could almost see the gears in her mind churning at an excruciatingly fast pace as she tried to come up with an explanation.
“Erm, I uh took a class not that long ago…” Sakura turned, with her eyes closed, to smile brightly at the annoyed ninja sitting at her table and offer him the omelet she had just completed.
She almost heaved a sigh of relief when she felt the peace offering taken from her outstretched hand. Hastily, she turned back to the stove and started a third omelet, hoping she would be allowed to eat this one.
